


Rip Current Anthem

by elegantanagram (Lir)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Alternate Universe - Mob, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gang Leader Meenah, Mafiastuck, POV Third Person, Pale-Red Vacillation, Quadrant Smearing, Red Romance, Right Hand Man Karkat, Wordcount: 100-2.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 20:43:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1563416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lir/pseuds/elegantanagram
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It's not weakness, and she wouldn't admit it as such if it were, even to her dying breath. There's nothing wrong with needing someone to steady her nerve and placate her rage. She can be all the more ruthless with someone watching her back, because nobody's getting the better of her unless they get the better of him first.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rip Current Anthem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vintar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vintar/gifts).



> I really wanted to write right-hand man Karkat, and was a little bit tempted by the prompt for Meenah+Feferi mobsters. The net result, since I didn't have the stamina to do both, is Meenah+Karkat mobsters. I'm... Pretty sure I intend them to still be trolls, though it's just vague enough to be read as humanstuck if one is so inclined. Also featuring what is pretty definitely some red/pale quadrant smearing.

-

Meenah chucks the briefcase on the table so that it thumps against the polished wood, hefting it like it was the weight making her clumsy. She nudges one of the corners with her foot, leaving the tread of her boot braced against the table's edge even after her offering has been perfectly oriented to lie in line with the table's edge.

"Whale," she says, jerking her head to the side in a gesture that could be meant to take in the case, or to take in the entire spread of darkly-suited men seated across from her. "Were you gunna take me at my word, fellas, or do you want to get counting all those fat stacks I shoved in there?"

She only grins wider when one of the men coughs, flashing a dizzying swathe of her pearly whites. His narrow face is drawn with distaste, and his mouth puckers like he's bitten into a lemon. She bets that one's Droog, always serious as a heart attack and snooty as nobody's business. She's never been bothered to get any of them straight. Not when they're just interchangeable suits, pretending at being good enough for authority.

There really is money in the case, all the hard-earned bucks Meenah milked out of her territory, earned through cleverness and shrewdness and frequent bouts of brute intimidation. These jackasses might not trust her to make good on her tithe, and they might be right to doubt, but Meenah Peixes ain't no failure. If she says she can rustle up a quarter of a mil, you damn well bet she's going to have a quarter of a mil, and maybe a little something extra.

"What kind of shitty insult is that?" the man to Droog's right snaps. His head jerks back, his glare hot and eager. "Of course we're going to count it. What kind of irresponsible idiots do you take us for?"

That one's Slick, she knows that much. The challenge comes through with every line of his body: the upward tilt to his chin, the tenseness to the muscles in his throat, the way one of his hands is tucked just inside the breast of his jacket. There's a man who wants her to fail if Meenah's ever seen one. She wants to give him what he's asking for, wants to stomp her foot down and pull out her knives.

"Go on, Deuce," Droog says, nodding to the smaller man sitting on his other side. "Your math skills can use the brush-up."

Slick gentles by just a hair, and it's not a moment too soon. Meenah can feel the hand at the small of her back, and fuck any one of them if he happens to see it. It's not weakness, and she wouldn't admit it as such if it were, even to her dying breath. There's nothing wrong with needing someone to steady her nerve and placate her rage. She can be all the more ruthless with someone watching her back, because nobody's getting the better of her unless they get the better of him first.

And Karkat spits something vicious when he wants to, angry words from a sharp tongue and of the sort that never fail to bring a grin to Meenah's lips. He's irreverent and opinionated, and she wouldn't let anyone less be the one to pull on her cape.

Deuce shuffles forward, mincing little steps on gingering feet, his hands reaching for the clasps on the case.

Meenah continues to loom over him, her spine curved to the max as she leans down to shove her face on his level. Go on, her smirk dares, go ahead and make my day, go ahead and question my offering.

The clasps on the case pop open at the touch of Deuce's fingers, one soft click followed by another, followed by the meaty thump of something heavy hitting the floor. The lid of the case falls back and the little man holding it widens his eyes, as the neat stacks of bills inside it are splashed with a fine stream of blood.

He turns in time to see the massive wall of Boxcar's body topple, in time to see a hand fisted in Slick's hair pulling his head back and leaving his neck open to take the unflinching bite of a blade. He sees how quick Karkat moved, swinging around Meenah to the other side of the room, sees how ruthless her second can be in his own full right. She gives him a nice, long minute to admire her right-hand man's skill.

Then she reaches down, and snaps Deuce's pencil neck with a decisive, sharp twist.

She's not surprised to look up and see Droog with a gun in his hand, the weapon trained dispassionately on Karkat and his expression hardly changed. He's a bastard till the end, though of course he wouldn't go easy.

"Put it away, cranky," Meenah scoffs. "You can only shoot one of us at a time and you betta be sure you hake the right choice. I'll put a bullet in your head just as quick as he'd knife ya."

Droog considers. Karkat wipes the blade of his knife on Slick's jacket breast, the gash across the man's throat gaping open like a second, lurid mouth. Meenah regrets for a moment that she'll never get that fight with him, the one they've always just barely skirted around at every meeting and exchange. She marvels that Karkat managed it so cleanly, sliced all the way to the bone, on a man so untrusting as Slick.

She doesn't think about what it might have cost him, what arcane rituals of bonding Karkat and the mobster might have undergone, on other exchanges she didn't bother to be around for. It doesn't matter to her what it took to get Slick to so dangerously lower his guard.

"Listen to her," Karkat suggests. "You're a reasonable guy. When the bells of the new order come to toll, you're the kind of person who clears out his aural clots of all the bile they've been filled with and bothers to listen to the music. You're not part of the biggest gang in town any more. As of two whole, entire minutes ago, there is no fucking biggest gang. Your crew just disbanded."

Meenah is about to draw, before she sees Droog sticking his piece back inside his coat.

"He right about you, huh?" she says. "You a mercenary little son of a beach. I ain't about to trust ya far as I can throw ya, but if you're ready to kelp with what I got in store for this joint, I'm ready to give you the chance."

"Don't consider me disloyal," Droog cautions. "There is a difference between betrayal, and making the best of a bad situation."

"Whatever you wanna tell yourshellf to feel betta aboat bein' a stone-cold bastard," Meenah says. "It ain't no skin off my nose no matter how you slice it."

"I'll take my leave," Droog says. "If you can refrain from stabbing me in the back on the way out."

"Get outta here," Meenah agrees, shooing him with one hand. She doesn't miss the way he backs to the internal door, not giving her a chance to betray whatever implied agreement she might have just made to not attack him.

It's only when the door clicks closed that it really sinks in how she's really, truly defeated the biggest obstacle between her and ruling their town. Even without dropping Droog into a pile of his own blood, the carnage of her victory fills the room. The smell of the blood only makes her giddy. She tips the briefcase shut, bounds over the table, and seizes Karkat by both sides of his face even as he looses Slick to slide back against the chair he'd been sitting in.

She kisses him hard on the mouth, ferocious as a riptide, determined to pull him under with the sheer magnitude of her enthusiasm. She doesn't worry about the knife in his hands or the sickle hooked from his belt, trusting that he would never do her violence, not even through accident. He's shaking a little under her hands – probably the adrenaline from the killing, she decides – but his mouth is steady and firm.

She breaks away, spinning so hard her braids lash out around her, and scoops the briefcase back up from the table.

"That was flippin' fintastic!" she declares. "Ain't no one in this city badder than us now."

"You say that as if you weren't already so terrifying that half of everybody around couldn't even scrape together the two cowering brain cells necessary to properly conceptualize being scared. Now they know better. Let's get out of here before someone comes in and disgorges the entirety of their bowels in fear at what a disgusting fucking mess this place is."

"Couldn't have put it betta," Meenah says, slinging one arm around Karkat's shoulders and letting the briefcase hang from the other.

As they stroll back out of the now defunct crew hideout, Meenah is certain he's preening from the praise.

-

-


End file.
